The United Seas Part 4

It can be heard through the nations, around the world.

Whether Caucasian or Mongolian--he can talk about the globe.

And distance-vanis.h.i.+ng Fulton, you were one; Who--launching upon the waters the first steam-propelled s.h.i.+p, the Cleremont, From who's experimental hull leaped into existence The Savanah, the Great Eastern and Britannia, Each moving faster, faster than the one before-- Was the first to draw together the continents, like some Colossus with a shortening cord of time Until from coast range to distant sh.o.r.es And from distant sh.o.r.es to coast range Each new speeding steamer brings us closer, Making more certain the intermingling of the races preparing for the brotherhood of man.

And great Augustine, dissolute as a youth But angelic as a man, you were one; Who--the humblest and the quickest to recognize That since the day of Christ all n.o.ble men were sent, And that constrained and resolute with Paul and with Peter they had gone-- Was the first--thank G.o.d you appeared--to marshal the good men for conquest, To organize into missionary ranks the vision'd souls of the church, Dispatching spirit-armored heroes from Rome to early England's soil And preventing the annihilation of Christian hope and truth.

n.o.ble prophet! Little did you know, O Augustine, what you had done.

Unbrazened in the face, illuminated with the divine, With the crystal eye of goodness looking light and health into pagan nights, And cowering l.u.s.t's mountain hurling hosts, Followed by new recruits, since then the ranks have grown.

Men have come one by one and year by year Until fifteen thousand heralded volunteers and ninety thousand native workers Now can be seen from glad heavens Missionary Ridge, offering light and character on heathen fields!

Far-reaching, sea-exploring, colonizing England in its youth saved for enlightenment!

Christ inspired it! But you achieved it!

And today, as the oceans and the continents are united, So five hundred and sixty-five million followers are gradually demanding that the races and the peoples In essential Christianity--the good recognizing in other faiths--shall be one.

And mind-emanc.i.p.ating Luther, thou art one-- Fearing only G.o.d and truth.

Hating naught but sham and falsehood!

For traveling back from our day into medieval darkness-- (The chains, hear them rattle! But also hear them snap in a true reformers clutch Causing mult.i.tudes to rise from superst.i.tion And stand upon their feet, erect in the freedom of a simple faith)-- We there behold the pioneer of intellectual freedom, A simple monk, commanding the low-browed ignorance of a whole dark continent to think, Awakening the western world to science, to true religion and to thought; Until the mind of the sullen ma.s.ses of Europe now is brooding, And in America it is voting, While the public mind of the world is becoming more and more habituated to reason for international concourse.

For the Bible, the rocks and the skys are unchained, Because Luther lived and honestly dared for the truth!

These are the men--inspired by Him who altered times calendar and began an Easter day-- Who took epochal steps for the world's conquest.

That directly achieved in encircling the globe.

But there are others, a host of others, worthy, n.o.ble, world pioneers.

O indispensable pioneers, see them moving out in history, Just as bravely, just as necessary, often giving inspiration to the first, Most of them impelled forward by Columbus and Copernicus-- The inspirers of explorers, the pioneers of the pioneers.

Consecrated to humanity and the world, look backward and see the host of sphere-ward moving men; See the explorers--with Columbus, Balboa, Drake, Desoto opening up a new west.

See the scientists--Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, daring to say that G.o.d is in life.

See the philosophers--Aristotle, Plato, Hegel, Kant and Eucken.

See the missionaries--Judson, Carey, Thomas, Livingstone, Moffat and Morrison.

See the inventors--Stevenson, Watt, Marconi, Edison and Bell.

See the patriots--Solon, Savonarola, Cromwell, Henry, Lincoln and Gladstone.

Mighty huers through the forests,-- See them laboring for a nation in some special task or knowledge, But incidentally and emphatically for the world.

And turn your eyes from the past to the present to observe your own world inspired sons!

See them moving toward the international congress and the Hague, The greatest educators, amba.s.sadors and financiers, See them increasing in their numbers, for they also will be counted with the world pioneers.

O Copernicus, we hail thee for announcing to timid minds that the earth, "it is a globe."

O Kepler and Newton, we celebrate you for a.s.serting it is true.

O Galileo, we honor and respect you for looking superst.i.tion squarely in the face and before highest potentates declaring: "But nevertheless it does move!"

We commemorate you all master-minded men, Who have announced, and explored and unified the globe.

Surely these are not pygmies nor dwarfs.

But in achievement, they are t.i.tans, they are giants, They are the immortal pioneers of the world.

And these lives moving forward, have they all been lived for naught!

No! A thousand times no, O far-sighted men, now enlisting for new world movements!

Speak the message of the united seas with at least a prophetic international preamble And announce the coming of essential democracy for the world.

[C]THE OLIVE BRANCH AS AN EMBLEM OF WORLD PEACE

In history the olive has been n.o.bly emblematic of three virtues--peace, purity and industry with its attendant prosperity. And I mention these three virtues for which the olive stands because we will never in the world establish peace unless it is preceded in community, state and nation by virile-mindedness, which is the very secret of industry and prosperity wherever they are found.

Whenever the Greek looked out at a foothill mantled with an olive orchard, gently waving in the distance, a sea of bluish-green leaves; or seized upon an olive branch, he was reminded of the fact that no man was worthy of a crown of olives unless he was right-minded, peace-loving, and industrious. For, the placing of a crown of olive twigs on the brow of a person was the highest distinction that could be bestowed on a citizen who had merited well of his country.

Not only were the n.o.ble-minded statesmen and poets thus honored, but also the athletes who, by scrupulous care and development of the body, gained physical victories at the Olympic games. The harmless and commendable victories of peace always result from well-developed manhood. And so on the last day of these games the victor received, in front of the temple, the crown of wild olives gathered from the sacred tree. For the olive was sacred to Minerva, the G.o.ddess of wisdom and therefore of purity, peace and prosperity.

Among the Romans also it had a similar significance. The olive crown of the Roman conqueror at an ovation and those of the equites at the imperial review, alike typified the gifts of peace that, in a barbaric age, could be secured by victory only. I say all history has a.s.sociated the olive with these three superb virtues, wherever the olive tree has grown. But if secular history has offered the olive branch to the conqueror in honor of a peace secured through contest or war, the surprising thing about the olive in Biblical history is that it represents peace as coming directly to an individual, community, or nation because of a Christian-mindedness--a type of mind that is controlled by reason, justice, love, intelligence, and purity of thought.

For, what do these striking verses in the Prophet Zechariah mean?--

"'What sees't thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold with a bowl upon the top of it and his seven lamps thereon.

"'And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereon'."

What do these beautiful verses mean? Simply this,--that the source of all peace, individual and international, is that type of mind which Christ and Christian statesmen have. The two olive trees, one on each side of the candlestick, stand for Christian character--one for the stern moral character of the prophet, the other for the mercy of the true religious teacher. And the candlestick stands for work, for service for mankind and the nations. And as both of the olive trees supply the light with oil, so we are not to seek for peace on earth with the sword, but by increasing the number of men whose service for humanity is controlled by Christian morality and justice, mercy, and kindness.

These are the men who will bring peace. G.o.d increase the number! These are the men that providence can use to correlate the nations into essential democracy. These are the men who are worthy of a crown of olives! These are the men that we must depend upon to correct the compa.s.s of the s.h.i.+p of the world, as it moves forward against the besetting fury of antagonistic waters, bearing its prow day by day and year by year against the unwearied enmity of hateful waves, until it reaches the haven of essential international peace.

[D]THE INEVITABLE DRIFT

For the earth-- The white enfolded, or green Easter world, Warmed by nature's heart into a new bursting life-- Like the universe, the earth is a perfect spherical creation, And because the world is a sphere, the most perfect of figures, Animated and endowed with purpose and reason, It is therefore much better than all other forms.

And so man, with humanity-love and reason gifted, Feeling that he is a part of all that thrills in sod, sky or sea, Developed, demands the fullness of the globe's life as his home.

And to look not beyond a continent or nation, Is barbaric, retrogressive and sinful; For He that said, to the child of every race, "be thou perfect,"

Thereby also commands to be naturalized to the sphere.

And this, O armies and bigots is the inevitable drift!